Amazon Adventures

" My name is Rachel," said the dark-skinned girl who had recently saved my life.

She extended her hand and I shook it. Her grip was firm and strong. I looked at her. This girl was something else. Her skin was dark brown, her eyes a pale golden color. Her black hair was short and almost spiky on top. She wore dark gray fatigues and seemed pretty handy with a rifle.

"This is my father Antonio," she said, indicating the tall, older man. I shook his hand. Antonio was a tall, dark-skinned man with a mustache and a full beard. He wore a gray shirt and faded jeans. Both he and his daughter looked like they worked for a living.

Later that night, they offered me a place to stay. It was obvious to them that I was in bad shape. I had no money. I didn't even know where I was. Oh, yeah. Things were looking bad for me. I was lost in the jungle, in the middle of nowhere. My new 'friends' told me that they lived in the region of Lupine, three hundred miles from Manaus, the nearest town. Manaus itself was several hundred miles away from the capital of Brazil. I was very far away from my hotel room, my ATM machines and all the things I was familiar with.

I slept that night on a small bed, and listened to the sounds of the night as I lay there. The jungle was a noisy place during the day and astonishingly silent at night. It was eerie, you know? I have lived in the big cities my whole life. I am not used to silence. I was also not used to certain annoying things like mosquitoes. I hated mosquitoes. Those annoying bloodsuckers harassed and hounded me to death. It occurred to me that I might be able to send for help through the Internet. I got up from bed and asked Antonio if he had a laptop. The old dude looked at me as if I were speaking Martian or something. No, the old Brazilian farmer didn't have a frigging laptop computer!

In the next few days, I would discover that Rachel and her father led a very primitive sort of life. They didn't even have a computer in this big house of theirs, and this was the year 2006! I couldn't believe this shit.